Hoagland steps back from Armstrong

As noted in Thursday’s New York Times, the website StandUpForLance.com was purchased by Hoagland, the chairman of Restore America’s Voice Foundation, to support the cyclist as he fights a doping scandal.

The PAC’s mission largely centers around its hope of repealing “Obamacare” and is “an effort to restore American’s rightful voice in a nation founded on the idea of liberty, limited government and self-rule.”

Hoagland purchased the site in August and tells POLITICO that he had big plans for it.

“We thought, here’s a guy getting a raw deal,” said Hoagland. “We were planning on taking out national ads.”

But now Hoagland, like many others, is having second thoughts about Armstrong’s innocence and has shelved any plans for the site.

“Once the report came out, we watched it pretty closely,” said Hoagland. “As more and more came out, we thought maybe the scrutiny is justified. … In this case, it kind of comes down to the facts.”

He’s not yet ready to say that Armstrong is guilty — “I’m just the wrong person to ask about that” — but says “with everything coming out, I know he’s probably feeling the pressure” to issue a confession and apology.

“But I can‘t say whether he’s going to do that or not,” said Hoagland.

In the meantime, he’s probably going to get rid of the domain name. “It goes over to the tech guys to figure out how we do that.”